Four bus companies and one airline sell the Guatemala City–San Salvador corridor, and they agree on almost nothing: published one-way fares run $20 to $62, published journey times 4 h 45 min to 6 h on the same road, and the buses leave from four addresses in three zones of the capital.
Quick summary: Cheapest seat, Tica Bus $20 (06:30 daily, 16:30 Mon–Fri, Zona 12). Fastest published trip, Pullmantur 4 h 45 min (from $36, Hotel Holiday Inn, Zona 10). Published round-trip product, Comfort Lines Premium $50 — but Tuesdays it runs a single 06:00 departure. Only evening bus, Transporte del Sol’s 18:00. Flying with TAG takes 50 minutes, runs four days a week and starts at $200 round trip. Tica Bus and Transporte del Sol name the Valle Nuevo / Las Chinamas crossing; Pullmantur and Comfort Lines publish no border post at all.
Every published fare on the route
| Operator | Class | Fare one way | Departures (GT → SV) | Duration | Boards in Guatemala City | Border |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tica Bus | standard (no class name published) | $20 | 06:30 daily; 16:30 Mon–Fri | 6 h (timetable gap) | Terminal y Hotel Santiago, Calzada Aguilar Batres 18-35, Zona 12 | Valle Nuevo y Las Chinamas |
| Tica Bus | Servicio Diamante | $35 | 05:30 and 14:00 daily | 6 h (timetable gap) | same | Valle Nuevo y Las Chinamas |
| Comfort Lines Premium | single class published | $25 ($50 round trip) | 06:00 and 15:15 daily — Tuesdays 06:00 only | 5 h / 5 h 15 (timetable gap) | Estación Confort Tours, 4 Av. 13-60, Zona 10 | not published |
| Transporte del Sol | Ejecutivo | $36 ($72 round trip) | 05:30, 14:00, 18:00 (Las Américas) · 06:00, 14:30 (Stofela) | “5h aprox.” | Hotel Las Américas Zona 13 or Best Western Plus Stofela | Las Chinamas |
| Transporte del Sol | Brillante 1ra Clase | $52 ($100 round trip) | 05:30, 14:00 (Las Américas) · 06:00, 14:30 (Stofela) | “5h aprox.” | same two hotels | Las Chinamas |
| Pullmantur | Turista / Turista Superior | $36 ($72 round trip) | 06:00 and 14:00 daily | 4 h 45 min | Hotel Holiday Inn, 1a Avenida 13-22, Zona 10 | not published |
| Pullmantur | Ejecutiva | $39 ($78 round trip) | Mon 07:00 · Fri 07:00 and 14:30 · Sat 07:00 · Sun 14:30 | 4 h 45 min | same | not published |
| Pullmantur | Primera Clase | $62 ($124 round trip) | 06:00 and 14:00 daily, plus 07:00 Mon/Fri/Sat and 14:30 Fri/Sun | 4 h 45 min | same | not published |
| TAG Airlines | economy | from $200 round trip | Mon 09:05 · Wed 09:45 · Fri 09:45 and 18:40 (estimated) | 50 min | La Aurora airport (GUA) | n/a |
Timetable-gap durations are not operator-stated times — they are the interval between that operator’s own published departure and arrival. Only Pullmantur publishes a duration as such (4 h 45 min); Transporte del Sol publishes only a route-card figure of 5h aprox. Pullmantur’s fare page calls its cheapest class Turista and its itinerary page Turista Superior, for the same 06:00/14:00 service.
Two things in that table change decisions: the floor is $20, not $25 or $36 — Tica Bus’s two unlabelled departures are the cheapest seats anyone publishes — and Pullmantur is not the budget option, at nearly double Tica’s price, though it is the only operator claiming under five hours. Every fare is published in US dollars; at the Banco de Guatemala rate of Q7.62817 per dollar on 12 September 2026, $20 is about Q152.56 and $62 about Q472.95.
Which one to pick
Starting in Antigua? Four sellers run a daily shuttle straight to San Salvador, US$37-60: see Antigua to San Salvador.
Cheapest: Tica Bus, $20 — the 06:30 daily and the 16:30 Monday-to-Friday. The trade is location and time: Calzada Aguilar Batres in Zona 12, six hours by the operator’s own arrival time. Tica Bus publishes no round-trip fare, so do not assume $40; buy the return as its own ticket. Detail: our Tica Bus Guatemala page.
Comfort Lines Premium round-trip product, $50 — $25 each way, below every Pullmantur class. Watch the exception the operator prints on its own timetable: on Tuesdays there is a single Guatemala→El Salvador departure, at 06:00.
Earliest and latest. First buses at 05:30 — Tica Bus Servicio Diamante ($35) and Transporte del Sol from Hotel Las Américas ($36 Ejecutivo or $52 Brillante). Last is Transporte del Sol’s 18:00 Ejecutivo, the only evening departure anyone publishes here; Tica’s 16:30 ($20, Mon–Fri) is next-latest. Everything else is morning or early afternoon.
Fastest: Pullmantur, 4 h 45 min. The 75-minute spread against Tica Bus’s implied six hours is the only sourced evidence that the crossing costs real time — none of the operators we read publishes a border-queue estimate. Our Pullmantur operator page covers that carrier alone.
Most comfortable, on paper: Pullmantur Primera Clase ($62) or Transporte del Sol Brillante 1ra Clase ($52) — the top published classes. Neither publishes seat dimensions, so the class name is the only evidence. Pullmantur states that its fares include on-board meal and drink service and are quoted in dollars including taxes; Transporte del Sol states all its services include food, drink and on-board attention. Baggage allowances differ (read 5 October 2026): Tica Bus allows two 15 kg suitcases on its homepage and in its contract, plus a carry-on per its homepage (its FAQ says 30 kg); Transporte del Sol includes two 50 lb suitcases and a 5 lb carry-on; Pullmantur one 50 lb suitcase in the hold plus a small bag or backpack; Comfort Lines states none on its schedules-and-fares page.
Hotel boarding: Pullmantur or Transporte del Sol. Pullmantur uses hotels at both ends — Holiday Inn in Zona 10, Sheraton Presidente in San Salvador’s Colonia San Benito. Transporte del Sol offers two Guatemala City hotels on different timetables, and asks passengers to arrive at least 45 minutes before departure — its own rule. Pullmantur asks for at least 30 minutes; Tica Bus requires at least 45 minutes in its contract and recommends one hour on its homepage.
One stop most write-ups miss: Pullmantur lets you alight at Santa Ana (Gasolinera Puma Santa María, at the roundabout for the Ahuachapán / San Cristóbal / Santa Ana turnoff) — but only if you declare it at the office in Guatemala and again to the crew when you hand over your luggage.
Child fares come from three of the four: Pullmantur $31 one way / $62 round trip for under-12s; Comfort Lines free for 0–1 and half fare for 2–9; Transporte del Sol a $25 Ejecutivo “tarifa menor”. Tica Bus publishes none.
The flight option
TAG Airlines relaunched the direct Guatemala City–San Salvador route on 13 July 2026: four weekly frequencies, ATR 72 aircraft, from $200 round trip, a 50-minute flight. The reported schedule is Monday 09:05→09:55, Wednesday 09:45→10:35, Friday 09:45→10:35 and Friday 18:40→19:30 — the source labels these estimated times, so confirm at booking.
That $200 is roughly 4× the $50 Comfort Lines Premium round-trip fare and 2.8× Transporte del Sol’s $72 Ejecutivo. Add TAG’s own rules before comparing door to door: its contract of carriage puts passengers at the airport three hours before an international flight, closes every flight 45 minutes before departure, and limits baggage to 20 pounds with $3.00 per excess pound.
The border
Only two operators name the crossing. Tica Bus lists “Valle Nuevo y Las Chinamas” on every Guatemala↔El Salvador departure; Transporte del Sol lists “Las Chinamas”. Valle Nuevo (Guatemala) and Las Chinamas (El Salvador) are the two sides of the same post. Pullmantur and Comfort Lines do not publish a border post on the pages we read, and we do not assign them one.
Hours. At Las Chinamas — the post Tica Bus and Transporte del Sol name — El Salvador’s migration service (DGME) lists 24/7, while El Salvador’s customs agency (DGA) lists its Las Chinamas office as open Monday to Sunday, 5:00 a.m. to midnight (both read 1 October 2026). A Salvadoran news report of 31 July 2026 had given a single 24-hour figure for the post; office by office, the hours are on Valle Nuevo / Las Chinamas. Guatemala’s own immigration site (IGM) returned HTTP 403 on 12 September 2026, so the Guatemalan side’s hours are not published here, and no fast-lane arrangement is confirmed from Guatemala’s side.
Documents. Transporte del Sol asks for a valid identity document, and notes no major restrictions for Central Americans (CA-4). Pullmantur also publishes passport or CA-4 identity-document requirements, with any visa required by nationality. For how the CA-4 clock works — including why crossing into El Salvador does not reset it — see the CA-4 border run guide.
The other three Guatemala–El Salvador crossings (Pedro de Alvarado, San Cristóbal, Anguiatú), with SAT’s hours and which ones handle tourist vehicle permits, are compared on El Salvador border crossings.
Where each bus actually leaves from
- Zona 10, hotel district. Two operators, two addresses: Pullmantur at the Hotel Holiday Inn, 1a Avenida 13-22, Comfort Lines Premium at its own Estación Confort Tours, 4 Av. 13-60 — near each other, not the same place.
- Zona 12, Calzada Aguilar Batres. Tica Bus, at Terminal y Hotel Santiago, 18-35, well south-west of the hotel zone. Counter hours Monday–Friday 05:00–17:00, Saturday–Sunday 05:00–14:00 — relevant if you buy in person.
- Zona 13, airport side. Transporte del Sol, at the Hotel Las Américas, with a second point at the Best Western Plus Stofela (the operator does not publish that hotel’s zone).
See our intercity bus fares hub for domestic connections to those points, and the driving section if you would rather have a vehicle at the other end. None of these buses continues past San Salvador, so for the Salvadoran coast read Antigua to El Tunco.
Two names we could not verify
King Quality appears on nearly every round-up of this route. On 12 September 2026 its domain returned an empty reply over HTTP and a TLS handshake failure over HTTPS; on 25 September 2026 the name did not resolve at all. Its Facebook page (Transportes KING Quality, S.A.) lists the address 3ra Avenida 1-38, zona 9 and the phone 4508 3187, but the newest post we could load there dates from 2018. No King Quality fare or schedule is verifiable in 2026 from the operator, so this page publishes none. Transportes Galgos’ international arm is the same: all three domains failed to resolve.
One last trap: a widely-shared Guatemalan round-up updated in April 2026 still quotes Pullmantur “clase turista” at $34.00, with an itinerary that no longer matches Pullmantur’s own site. Read the operator, not the round-up — which is why every figure here carries the date it was read.
